“We gotter win terday” said Tel as we sprawled around my kitchen dining table, the mugs of coffee from my percolater still steaming in the gloomy daylight that filtered in through the window. The rain pattered a John Bonham drum roll on the french doors. I went looking for my Superdry rain jacket and found it hanging from a peg in my hallway, along with a 1992 Ipswich scarf I wore one of the frosty mornings we had last week. It’s now about as warming as wearing a shoelace, but it’s lucky. I don’t fancy a new one. Some bloke was outside Portman Road doing half’n’halfs before the game. Stuff that.
The Premier League experience so far is less than great, although I’m sure I’d be loving it more if we’d won. From strange kick-off times and days to VAR to the sense of greater entitlement, which is yet tinged by a fear that this is all academic; that somehow we’re destined for a season of toil at the pit face, dodging thrashings by the more vainglorious teams and hoping against hope for a decent performance and a few points here and there.
It’s not the Greatest League In The World, despite what the media say. Sure, for Arsenal, and Man City and Liverpool, it’s a chance to confirm superiority and that supercilious attitude; the chance to burst those idle weekday dreams of seeing your lads overcome the odds. Perhaps a worldie from Chappers, or a stunner from Delap, or a killer ball from Leif? And the dreams continue until the game kicks off and your team backs off and the opposition take over the midfield and duck and weave and bob better than you’ve seen, and f**k me, this is only Everton innit? They should have gone down last season, shouldn’t they? They’re skinter than a burgled Bob Cratchit.
So the coffee was drained and the mugs shoved in the sink and Tel found the washing-up liquid as I don’t have a dishwasher, don’t believe in them, our last one was rubbish and left stuff dirtier and smellier than they were when they went in. And he washed up, and I dried and put away and got my coat and we walked in the slowing rain to the railway. Mrs Tel would’ve driven us, but she dropped him at 9.30am so it seemed a bit early, even for our standards. She had a day in London with her niece and Sandy, her sister-in-law. They were off to see a matinee, or a movie, I forget which. She was parking at Manningtree for the train. Tel checked his car wasn’t already up on bricks with all windows smashed before we swung into the Station Cafe for a Guinness and a sausage and egg bap.
He had the bap, by the way. I’m back on a diet. A recent cautionary GP appointment showed I’ve somehow gained three quarters of a stone since July. So it’s porridge for breakfast, with home-picked blackberries on it. Nothing for lunch except if you count the pints I drank, and of course, you don’t. My evening meal is cooked, by me, with love and the use of many veg. I top this green and purple and orange fiesta with a bit of cod loin or a parsimonious pork cutlet, fat trimmed and flavoured with Old Bay spice. I find it deeply unfair that the weight doesn’t immediately melt off like a well-cooked bacon rasher, but it doesn’t. Well, not yet. The walks will probably do that in time.
So we meandered past the Stour and past the disused and almost quarry-like ICI plant and the increasingly zoo-like Jimmy’s Farm, where it appears they’ve got caged animals now. The train was full. The odd scouse accent betrayed an away supporter. The station was busier than I’d seen for a while and Tel said “Weekend tickits’r’cheap like” and I wondered if I might try a weekender in London next Saturday (not for the Brentford game as I haven’t got the points and only managed West Ham because a mate gave me a ticket in the home end, mind you, waste of time that was) and fancied a trip around the capital for a day, perhaps lunching somewhere respectable. On the vegetarian course, natch.
The pub was lively and we found a corner table and supped more Guinness, then Tel moved onto bottled Jap lager and I went for the ale. He found the Tottenham v West Ham game on his mobile and we sat, marvelling, for West Ham took the lead and Spurs looked awful for a while. They won 4-1 of course. It didn’t cheer me up much. Tel moaned “Gawd, made our result look worse aint it?” Then he carried on telling me the latest about Paula.
Ah Paula. Yes. You knew she’d pop up from time to time, didn’t you? Well, apparently, she and her bloke have split and she’s moved in with her sister again, from Basingstoke back to Harwich in one fell swoop. This means she’s left her job and is looking for another retail management role locally. She’s with her child at her sister’s so room must be at a premium, as her sister has (as far as I remember) only got a two-bed property and uses the spare room as a sort of junk outlet. Tel has lent her more money after she called him. “Jus’ ter ‘elp ‘er out, like, the missus’n’me both fought we’d ‘elp, win the little’un’n that”. I nodded and surreptitiously checked my phone for missed calls, just in case she got the bright idea that I could put my house on the market and “elp ‘er out” a bit more. But no. Not now. Perhaps never?
She did contact me in the end, earlier today, just to see how I was and to ask if I could lend her some money as she wanted to pay her sister back for her hospitality and needed to find somewhere to rent in a hurry. Unfortunately, she caught me at a bad time and I fear I was terse in my answer, even though I offered her a few hundred quid, which she sounded ungracious about but accepted. It’s not my fault. It’s never been my fault. Keep repeating it.
So the game was just the crowning bit of an off weekend, but not the be all and end all. True, we looked naive and a bit headless in our play and Everton picked us off through our mistakes and we never, in all honesty, looked capable of hitting back, which was the most depressing bit as we’d done this countless times in the Championship last season. But then it’s not the Championship, is it? These teams are better organised and better equipped and we just looked like what we probably are right now, a newly-promoted team who are trying to match teams with skill but lacking that extra quality to do it.
So the train back was chastening, as matter-of-fact as I’d heard it in the Lambert end days when we hovered around mid-table in League One and were drawing with one-dimensional northern sides who set out for a point and would die to achieve it. Come full circle. I’d arrogantly dismissed a point before the game yesterday as beneath us. Surely there wouldn’t be another game where all three looked eminently attainable? And yet. And yet.
Mrs Tel was due in at six so Tel went for another pint in the Station and I joined him. No curry last night. He just wanted to get home. So did I. We sat in perfunctory chatter, sipping lager and keeping an eye out for the familiar calf-leather coated and chestnut-haired mirage from the Norwich-bound trains. She turned up on the 6.04pm. Tel went and walked her over , helping with the shopping bags from Fortnums and Burberry that she carried (a new pepper grinder and a new scarf - it could never replace my old Ipswich one, although it looked warmer. Shame it wasn’t actually a present for me). I kissed her and she ran me home.
Bloody football eh? Still, while there’s hope left, I’m hoping. |  |
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